1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable computer, and more particularly, to a cooling apparatus for use in a portable computer for releasing heat generated in the portable computer to the outside.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable computers are devices, including notebook computers, tablet computers and the like, which can be used while users carry them. In the present invention, a notebook computer is used as an example of the portable computer.
FIG. 10 shows a perspective view of an external appearance of a general notebook computer. As shown in this figure, the notebook computer 1 is mainly composed of a main body 3 and a display unit 5. The display unit 5 generally includes a display 6 made of a liquid crystal panel and is connected to a rear end of the main body 3 so as to come into close contact with or to be unfolded from a top surface of the main body 3. Both the main body 3 and the display unit 5 generally have a flat hexahedral shape.
A keyboard 7 is provided on the top surface of the main body 3. A vent 9 for releasing heat generated in the main body to the outside is formed at one side of the main body 3. That is, an air stream containing the heat generated in the main body 3 is discharged to the outside through the vent 9.
As illustrated in FIG. 11, a main board 10 is installed within the main body 3. A microprocessor (CPU) 11 is mounted onto the main board 10. The microprocessor 11 controls the processing works such as command analysis, data operation and data comparison. A cooling fan unit 12 is installed within the main body 3 to release heat generated in the microprocessor 11 to the outside. The cooling fan unit 12 creates an air stream by using a cooling fan 14 installed in a fan housing 13. The fan housing 13 is in thermal contact with the microprocessor 11, and the air stream created by the cooling fan 14 flows toward the vent 9 along one side of the fan housing 13.
A cooling fin unit 15 is installed between the vent 9 and the fan housing 13. The cooling fin unit 15 is configured to allow the air stream to pass therethrough. Further, a heat pipe 16 is used to transfer the heat generated from the microprocessor 11 to the cooling fin unit 15. The heat pipe 16 extends from one side of the fan housing 13 installed on the microprocessor 11 to the cooling fin unit 15.
Furthermore, a plurality of chips 18 are mounted onto the main board 10. To easily release the heat generated from the chips 18, a cooling plate 19 is installed to come into thermal contact with the chips 18. The cooling plate 19 may be made of an aluminum or copper plate and serves to receive heat generated in the chips through heat conduction and to release the received heat to the outside.
However, the aforementioned prior art has the following problems:
The system for cooling the interior of the main body 3 has been heretofore focused onto the microprocessor 11. However, the heat generated in the chips 18 has become considerable, as the performance of the notebook computer is improved.
Therefore, if the release of heat generated from the chips 18 depends only on the heat conduction through the cooling plate 19, the heat release performance of the main body 3 is greatly reduced and the surface temperature of the main body 3 is thus excessively increased. FIG. 12 shows the heat release performance of various component parts, installed within the main body 3, when the main body 3 is cooled using a conventional cooling mode. In this graph, bars, indicated by dotted lines, represent prescribed values, whereas bars, indicated by solid lines, represent actually measured values.